Skidmore College will be a smoke-free and tobacco-free campus, effective Jan. 1, 2019. Smoking and tobacco use — as well as the use of all e-cigarettes and vaping devices — will be prohibited throughout all Skidmore College property, including outdoor areas.

The Skidmore College community has again joined together to collect more than $13,000, 4,000 food items and over 1,000 school supplies and personal care items to support nonprofit organizations through the Skidmore Cares community service program.

Starting college with K-pop

December 4, 2018

The flashy, horse-trot dance of “Gangnam Style” is just a footnote in anthropology
professor Joowon Park’s first-year Scribner Seminar on K-pop at Skidmore College.

Park is using the vibrant music phenomenon from South Korea to help students explore
interdisciplinary ideas, challenge their assumptions about the world and help them
acclimate to the rigors of academic life at Skidmore.

“I’d started to see a lot of interest in K-pop not just from students, but from other
faculty. And I didn’t want FYE to be boring — I wanted something that I could enjoy
teaching and that everyone could have fun learning,” Park said.

The seminars are designed to be intellectually challenging while providing a support
network for new students. Offering a range of diverse topics, from sex in texts to the mathematics of sports, interdisciplinary Scribner Seminars cater to diverse interests, allowing students
to explore a range of fields and even possible majors.

“I deliberately pull from current scholarship in many disciplines — literary studies,
film and media studies, ethnomusicology, art history, sociology, anthropology,” Park
said. “Students develop the ability to formulate questions and use different types
of evidence. They’re able to communicate their ideas and they’re taking an active
role in their educational experience.”

Park’s K-pop course is structured around a progressive series of assignments, starting
with a single reflection about what K-pop means to each student. Students then complete
literature reviews and summarize their findings.

Students also are exposed to nitty-gritty components of college-level learning, such
as how to conduct research in Scribner Library and how to properly document sources
through footnotes and bibliographies.

“I’m really loving the course,” said Sophia Rubien from Manhattan’s West Village,
who is taking courses that range from marine biology and environmental science to
creative writing and dance at Skidmore. “We have a smaller class and everything is
very discussion-oriented.”

A main goal of Park’s course is helping students understand interconnectedness on
the global scale. Park explains that K-pop music, while produced in South Korea, has
a global reach through social media and smartphones. In 2012, PSY's "Gangnam Style"
was the first YouTube video to reach 1 billion views.

“It’s not just a thing being produced ‘way over there’ in Asia,” Park said. “It’s
not just exotic color. It’s tied to YouTube, creative content development and collaboration
between American and Korean artists. I want students to see these connections and
not compartmentalize.”

Despite that strong social media presence, Emma Shaw of Ithaca, New York, had only
limited familiarity with K-pop before taking the seminar.

“When I first told my new friends, they kind of laughed. I had to explain that we
talk about more than the music,” she said.

“We’re learning things that can be applicable later, like writing and analysis that
works across cultures. We’re learning to do those things respectfully, especially
on such a diverse campus.”

The diversity of students and faculty in the course, who come from a half dozen countries
across North America, Asia and Africa, as well as from a variety of backgrounds, has
added to the learning experience.

“Hearing all the different opinions has been by far the best part of the class,” Shaw
said. “Also, learning from someone who has direct experience helps. He (Park) speaks
the language and can properly interpret cultural context.”

Park is originally from South Korea but was raised in Kenya. After completing his
doctorate at the American University in Washington, Park returned to South Korea to
complete military service. He joined the Skidmore faculty in 2017.

Park explains that, as a music genre, K-pop reflects global influences and South Korea’s
increased prominence on the international stage.

South Korea “is investing in it,” he explained. “They’re finding that it offers new
national branding and soft power in international relations. It can be used in diplomacy,
so it’s an export with government support.”

Recently, K-pop superstars BTS even addressed the United Nations General Assembly
as part of a UNICEF initiative engaging the youth of the world.

“Inviting them expressed the hope that their message would reach millions of audience
members,” Park says.

In the end, Park’s course has less to do with the fancy footwork of K-pop and more
to do with footnotes.

“This course teaches students to think differently about diversity and global cultures,”
Park says. “We’re living in this very globalized world. So the hope throughout liberal
arts education is that they’ll think critically and then become producers and connectors
of knowledge themselves.”

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